Enjoy an irresistible feast of humour and discover the joys of French rural living with Peter Mayle's bestselling, much-loved account of A Year In Provence.

Peter Mayle and his wife did what most of us only imagine doing when they made their long-cherished dream of a life abroad a reality: throwing caution to the wind, they bought a glorious two hundred year old farmhouse in the Lubéron Valley and began a new life. In a year that begins with a marathon lunch and continues with a host of gastronomic delights, they also survive the unexpected and often hilarious curiosities of rural life. From mastering the local accent and enduring invasion by bumbling builders, to discovering the finer points of boules and goat-racing, all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life are conjured up in this enchanting portrait.

What images come to mind when you think of Las Vegas?
Mobsters and showgirls, magicians and tigers, multimillion-dollar poker games and prizefights; towering signboards that light up the night in front of ever more spectacular casino hotels.
But real people live here, too--over a million today, two million tomorrow. Greater Las Vegas has long been the fastest growing metropolitan area in America. And almost every aspect of its citizens' lives is influenced by the almighty power of the gambling industry.
A team of fifteen reporters led by David Littlejohn, together with prize winning photo-journalist Eric Gran, studied the "real" Las Vegas--the city beyond the Strip and Downtown--for the better part of a year. They talked to teenagers (whose suicide and dropout rates frighten parents), senior citizens (many of whom spend their days playing bingo and the slots), Mexican immigrants (who build the new houses and clean the hotels), homeless people and angry blacks, as well as local police, active Christians, city officials, and prostitutes. They looked into the local churches, the powerful labor unions, pawn shops, the real estate boom, defiant ranchers to the north, and dire predictions that the city is about to run out of water.
Proud Las Vegans claim that theirs is just a friendly southwestern boomtown--"the finest community I have ever lived in," says Bishop Daniel Walsh, who comes from San Francisco. But their picture of Las Vegas as a vibrant, civic-minded metropolis conflicts with evidence of transiency, rootlessness, political impotence, and social dysfunction.
In this close-up investigation of the real lives being led in America's most tourist-jammed, gambling-driven city, readers will discover a Las Vegas very different from the one they may have seen or imagined.

In this often-surprising book of essays, Krista Eastman explores the myths we make about who we are and where we're from. The Painted Forest uncovers strange and little-known "home places" -not only the picturesque hills and valleys of the author's childhood in rural Wisconsin, but also tourist towns, the "under-imagined and overly caricatured" Midwest, and a far-flung station in Antarctica where the filmmaker Werner Herzog makes an unexpected appearance. The Painted Forest upends easy narratives of place, embracing tentativeness and erasing boundaries. But it is Eastman's willingness to play-to follow her curiosity down every odd path, to exude a skeptical wonder-that gives this book depth and distinction. An unlikely array of people, places, and texts meet for close conversation, and tension is diffused with art, imagination, and a strong sense of there being some other way forward. Eastman offers a smart and contemporary take on how we wander and how we belong.

A SUNDAY TIMES NATURE BOOK OF THE YEAR *UPDATED EDITION FEATURING EXTRA MATERIAL* A nature diary by award-winning novelist, nature writer and hit podcaster Melissa Harrison, following her journey from urban south London to the rural Suffolk countryside. 'A writer of great gifts.' ROBERT MACFARLANE 'The journal of a writer to compare to Thomas Hardy. Melissa Harrison is among our most celebrated nature writers.' JOHN CAREY, THE TIMES A Londoner for over twenty years, moving from flat to Tube to air-conditioned office, Melissa Harrison knew what it was to be insulated from the seasons. Adopting a dog and going on daily walks helped reconnect her with the cycle of the year and the quiet richness of nature all around her: swifts nesting in a nearby church; ivy-leaved toadflax growing out of brick walls; the first blackbird's song; an exhilarating glimpse of a hobby over Tooting Common. Moving from scrappy city verges to ancient, rural Suffolk, where Harrison eventually relocates, this diary - compiled from her beloved Nature Notebook column in The Times - maps her joyful engagement with the natural world and demonstrates how we must first learn to see, and then act to preserve, the beauty we have on our doorsteps - no matter where we live. A perceptive and powerful call-to-arms written in mesmerising prose, The Stubborn Light of Things confirms Harrison as a central voice in British nature writing.

This is a thought-provoking work, capturing the march of time which overtook the maritime world in the last quarter of the 20th century. The final crumbling of the British register caused officers like Hall to find themselves in a strange new world, sailing under flags of convenience with all the old certainties of life at sea having vanished. There is both sadness and a rage at seeing a way of life disappear forever under the wheels of commerce, made more poignant by the author himself swallowing the anchor and moving on. Expelled from Indonesia as an undesirable, medically discharged in Honolulu, confined in Nigeria, Hall's turbulent life takes him from West Africa to Japan, from Europe to the Persian Gulf to the South Pacific. At last a Master Mariner, he serves on one last break-bulk general cargo ship, before transferring to the new maritime world. The prose is as elegantly expressed as in his earlier works. Steaming along the Yemeni coast, he writes: The bleakness of the South Yemen coastline made the green sea seem sharper in contrast, almost emerald in colour.The sun sat as a bright white orb in a blue white sky, the colours scourged out by dust blown offshore from the desert interior. In a typhoon near the Macclesfield Bank: Us; wild-eyed in the wheelhouse, braced against the forward bulkhead, awaiting our fate, helpless against a show of nature's fickle anger that could take us down among the fishes before we could cry Noo-ooooo...Maturity and marriage finally see off his tendency towards alcohol abuse: I began to yearn to make myself a better person and abandon the self-serving creature I had become. Wistful, unvarnished, droll, in powerless rage against the changes, this is an important companion to Hall's previous acclaimed books, a fine work that captures, in arresting style, the life of men who go down to the sea in ships. .

Discover Europe with the 'Only In' Guides! These ground breaking city guides are for independent cultural travellers wishing to escape the crowds and understand cities from different and unusual perspectives. Unique locations, hidden corners and unusual objects. A comprehensive illustrated guide to more than 80 fascinating and unusual historical sites in one of Europe's great capital cities - Hidden gardens, forgotten cemeteries, ruined churches, historic villages and unusual museums. Tracking the history from the Hohenzollerns and the Weimar Republic to the Third Reich and the Soviets and featuring sites such as; Devil's Mountain, the Bridge of Spies, Peacock Island, the Fuhrer Bunker, Frederick the Great's coffin, The Berlin Archaeopteryx, Marlene Dietrich, Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, Albert Einstein, Rosa Luxemburg and the Brothers Grimm.

Rory Stewart explores his love for the UK in this account of history, memory and landscape as he traverses the the borderlands between England and Scotland. 'This beautifully written book is a haunting reflection of identity and our relationships with the people and places we love' Daily Mail His father Brian taught Rory Stewart how to walk, and walked with him on journeys from Iran to Malaysia. Now they have chosen to do their final walk together along 'the Marches' - the frontier that divides their two countries, Scotland and England. On their six-hundred-mile, thirty-day journey - with Rory on foot, and his father 'ambushing' him by car - the pair relive Scottish dances, reflect on Burmese honey-bears, and on the loss of human presence in the British landscape. Travelling across mountain ridges and through housing estates they uncover a forgotten country crushed between England and Scotland: the Middleland. They discover unsettling modern lives, lodged in an ancient place, as their odyssey develops into a history of the British nationhood, a chronicle of contemporary Britain and an exuberant encounter between a father and a son. And as the journey deepens, and the end approaches, Brian and Rory fight to match, step by step, modern voices, nationalisms and contemporary settlements to the natural beauty of the Marches, and a fierce absorption in tradition in their own unconventional lives. 'Suggests an open-mindedness in Stewart, a tolerance and flexibility that could make him an exceptional politician while it also continues to define him as a writer' New York Review of Books 'Travel writing at its best' Guardian

Scott's influence on Scottish tourism is widely discussed among scholars. However, only a few have provided a holistic analysis of the relationship between Scott and Scottish tourism from the 19th to the 21st Century in a theoretical framework. This book reveals how the myth of Scott has been created and appropriated at different stages of the development of the Scottish tourism industry by drawing upon Roland Barthes' analysis of myth. The study is largely based on an analysis of 110 travel accounts and 48 guidebooks written between the 1770s and the 2010s. The author argues that Scott's influence on the Scottish tourism industry is strongly ensured by a wide participation of various actors in continuously changing forms.

The hadj, or sacred journey, is the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are enjoined to make once in their lifetimes. Its purpose is to detach human beings from their homelands and, by bringing them to Mecca, temporarily reinstate the equality of all people before God. One of the world's longest-lived religious rites, the hadj has continued without break for fourteen hundred years. It is, like most things Islamic, shrouded in mystery for Westerners. In his new book, Michael Wolfe, an American-born writer and recent Muslim convert, recounts his experiences on this journey, and in the process brings readers closer to the meaning of Islam. Wolfe's book bridges the high points of the Muslim calendar, beginning in April with the annual month-long fast of Ramadan. In Morocco, he settles into daily life with a merchant family in the ancient quarter of Marrakesh. During his three-month stay, he explores the intricate traditional life of Muslim Morocco. His accounts of this time deepen our feeling for Islam, a faith that claims one-sixth of the world's population. As summer approaches, he travels north to Tangier, where he visits Western writers and Moroccan mystics. In June, he arrives in Mecca, a city closed to all but Muslims. The protean experience of the hadj, and the real Mecca, that most religious and mysterious of cities, are captured in the last half of the book. Inevitably, the buildup to the Gulf War hovers in the background - the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is just weeks away. Yet it is the author's participation in the age-old rites of the hadj that most preoccupies his thoughts, strengthening his bond to the faith he has embraced as an outsider, developing and transforming it, makingit personal and alive.

"Conference of the Birds" is John Heilpern's true story of an extraordinary journey. In December 1972, the director Peter Brook and an international troupe of actors (Helen Mirren and Yoshi Oida among them) left their Paris base to emerge again in the Sahara desert. It was the start of an 8,500-mile expedition through Africa without precedent in the history of theater. Brook was in search of a new beginning that has since been revealed in all his work--from "Conference of the Birds" and "Carmen" to "The Mahabharata" and beyond. At the heart of John Heilpern's brilliant account of the African experiment is a story that became a search for the miraculous.

As read on BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'
Shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award
Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize

'Sherman’s is a special book. Every sentence, every thought she has, every question she asks, every detail she notices, offers something. The Bells of Old Tokyo is a gift . . . It is a masterpiece.' - Spectator

For over 300 years, Japan closed itself to outsiders, developing a remarkable and unique culture. During its period of isolation, the inhabitants of the city of Edo, later known as Tokyo, relied on its public bells to tell the time. In her remarkable book, Anna Sherman tells of her search for the bells of Edo, exploring the city of Tokyo and its inhabitants and the individual and particular relationship of Japanese culture - and the Japanese language - to time, tradition, memory, impermanence and history.

Through Sherman’s journeys around the city and her friendship with the owner of a small, exquisite cafe, who elevates the making and drinking of coffee to an art-form, The Bells of Old Tokyo presents a series of hauntingly memorable voices in the labyrinth that is the metropolis of the Japanese capital: An aristocrat plays in the sea of ashes left by the Allied firebombing of 1945. A scientist builds the most accurate clock in the world, a clock that will not lose a second in five billion years. A sculptor eats his father’s ashes while the head of the house of Tokugawa reflects on the destruction of his grandfather’s city (‘A lost thing is lost. To chase it leads to darkness’).

The result is a book that not only engages with the striking otherness of Japanese culture like no other, but that also marks the arrival of a dazzling new writer as she presents an absorbing and alluring meditation on life through an exploration of a great city and its people.

Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards In The Hidden Ways, Alistair Moffat traverses the lost paths of Scotland - its Roman roads tramped by armies, its byways and pilgrim routes, drove roads and railways, turnpikes and sea roads - in a bid to understand how our history has left its mark upon our landscape. As he retraces the forgotten paths that shaped and were shaped by the lives of the now forgotten people who trod them, Moffat charts a powerful, surprising and moving history of Scotland.

London Orbital is Iain Sinclair's exceptional voyage of discovery into the unloved outskirts of the city 'My book of the year. Sentence for sentence, there is no more interesting writer at work in English' John Lanchester, Daily Telegraph Encircling London like a noose, the M25 is a road to nowhere, but when Iain Sinclair sets out to walk this asphalt loop - keeping within the 'acoustic footprints' - he is determined to find out where the journey will lead him. Stumbling upon converted asylums, industrial and retail parks, ring-fenced government institutions and lost villages, Sinclair discovers a Britain of the fringes, a landscape consumed by developers. London Orbital charts this extraordinary trek and round trip of the soul, revealing the country as you've never seen it before. 'A magnum opus, my book of the year. I urge you to read it. In fact, if you're a Londoner and haven't read it by the end of next year, I suggest you leave' Will Self, Evening Standard 'A journey into the heart of darkness and a fascinating snapshot of who we are, lit by Sinclair's vivid prose. I'm sure it will be read fifty years from now' J. G. Ballard, Observer

Theodore Dreiser's "Russian Diary" is an extended record of the American writer's travels throughout the Soviet Union in 1927-28. Dreiser was initially invited to Moscow for a week-long observance of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. He asked, and was granted, permission to make an extended tour of the country.This previously unpublished diary is a firsthand record of life in the USSR during the 1920s as seen by a leading American cultural figure. It is a valuable primary source, surely among the last from this period of modern history.

From the medieval cobbles, through Dickensian iron and fog, to the neon lights and bustle of the twenty-first century, the ever-changing streets of London map out the vibrant stories, triumphs and struggles of everyone who ever called London home. From the Roman and Celts marching along the ancient Old Kent Road, to the rattling newspaper presses of Fleet Street, the game of Monopoly has painted London's story across cheerful coloured tiles. But those Monopoly streets live and breathe - they don't just illuminate our history. They open up whole new ways of thinking about it. The mobs have taken to our streets. The overlords have taken them back. Wars have spilled out into them. Lovers have snuck around them, and fires have raged through them. In a city of rags and riches, where folk hero Dick Whittington believed the streets were paved with gold, anything could happen - and everything has. You may think you know the history of London. You don't. Or at least, not entirely. This is the story of the capital as you've never, quite, heard it before.

The New York Times bestselling author of The Geography of Bliss embarks on a rollicking intellectual journey, following in the footsteps of history's greatest thinkers and showing us how each-from Epicurus to Gandhi, Thoreau to Beauvoir-offers practical and spiritual lessons for today's unsettled times. We turn to philosophy for the same reasons we travel: to see the world from a dif ferent perspective, to unearth hidden beauty, and to find new ways of being. We want to learn how to embrace wonder. Face regrets. Sustain hope. Eric Weiner combines his twin passions for philosophy and travel in a globe-trotting pil grimage that uncovers surprising life lessons from great thinkers around the world, from Rousseau to Nietzsche, Confucius to Simone Weil. Traveling by train (the most thoughtful mode of transport), he journeys thousands of miles, making stops in Athens, Delhi, Wyoming, Coney Island, Frankfurt, and points in between to recon nect with philosophy's original purpose: teaching us how to lead wiser, more meaningful lives. From Socrates and ancient Athens to Beauvoir and 20th-century Paris, Weiner's chosen philosophers and places provide important practical and spiritual lessons as we navigate today's chaotic times. In a "delightful" odyssey that "will take you places intellectually and humorously" (San Francisco Book Review), Weiner invites us to voyage alongside him on his life-changing pursuit of wisdom and discovery as he attempts to find answers to our most vital questions. The Socrates Express is "full of valuable lessons...a fun, sharp book that draws readers in with its apparent simplicity and bubble-gum philosophy approach and gradually pulls them in deeper and deeper" (NPR).

Explore the diverse cultural and historical legacy of the world's greatest writers, artists and composers on foot. This unique trans-continental culture trip around the world presents a series of inspiring walks, treks, and hikes that vary between easy one-hour strolls, half day trails, and multi-day expeditions for people who love a walking holiday and are looking for a more immersive experience. The book includes walks in easy to reach countryside areas, national parks, the wild, and the great cities of the world. From an urban Street Art Walking Tour of East London to a traverse through the Georgian melting pot city of Tbilisi to a literary-themed Millennium Tour of Stieg Larsson's Stockholm, Discover the World in 500 Walks with Writers, Artists & Musicians has all the inspiration and information you need to plan your next walking adventure.

Rebecca West's never-before-published "Survivors in Mexico "brings""to readers a daring and provocative work by a major twentieth-century author. An exhilarating exploration of Mexican history, religion, art, and culture, it explores the inner lives of figures ranging from Cortes and Montezuma to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Leon Trotsky.
"Witty and entertaining, substantive and reflective, insightful and well documented, in splendid and uncommon prose, Rebecca West's travelogue . . . is a model of British sophistication and knack for seeing the other."--Jorge G. Castaneda, "New York Times Book Review "
"An enthrallingly readable book . . . full of sharp impressions and stimulating insights."--Merle Rubin, "Los Angeles Times Book Review"
"Luscious reading. . . . The book succeeds beautifully as a travelogue thanks to West's intellect and experience, with Mexico serving as the vehicle for it all."--Sam Quinones, "Washington Post Book World "

A Guardian Best Nature Book of the Year

The magic and mystery of the woods are embedded in culture, from ancient folklore to modern literature. They offer us refuge: a place to play, a place to think. They are the generous providers of timber and energy. They let us dream of other ways of living. Yet we now face a future where taking a walk in the woods is consigned to the tales we tell our children.

Immersing himself in the beauty of woodland Britain, Peter Fiennes explores our long relationship with the woods and the sad and violent story of how so many have been lost. Just as we need them, our woods need us too. But who, if anyone, is looking out for them?

Wild People is the story of one man's experience living among a rare and almost extinct culture. The Iban are a primitive people who live in the hilly jungles of Borneo'whose peaceful existence of hunting, fishing, tending their crops, and worshipping their gods belies a fierce legacy of head-hunting. This, however, is no ordinary work of travel anthropology"if Andro Linklater takes us into the heart of this world he also take us into our own, and the clash of cultures he documents produces not only memorable insight but ample and sharp-witted humor. The author's sympathetic effort to truly understand this utterly alien and exotic culture is where the book's greatest value lies. Far up the Katibas River, where the maps grow vague, he finds a traditional longhouse agreeable to his three-month stay, and a world that makes no distinction between the physical and spiritual, animal and human, waking time and dream time. He learns how to interpret the oracles of birds, signs and omens of every kind, what gods to sacrifice to for a bumper rice harvest. He takes part in a gawai kenyalang, a rare and complex ceremony performed once in a man's lifetime to ensure his prestige in this and the spirit world. He becomes involved"even in matters of the heart. Seduced and beguiled by the culture he has come to respect and admire, the author asks himself a genuine question: Why not? It seems to work for them"they are not only handsome and brave but happy as well. Wild People gives us a palpable sense of what it might be like to live in a primitive culture. In the tradition of such English travel writers as Colin Thubron and Redmond O'Hanlon, it also tells of a personal journey"the story of one civilized and slightly cynical man's brief and poignant romance with a dying culture.

A satellite passes. It dips lower in its orbit to have a closer look at Central Asia. The sweep of its vision glosses the Celestial Mountains and the Mountains of Chaos. Its prying lenses probe the Taklamakhan, the Himalaya and the headwaters of Asia's greatest rivers. Mother Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Yellow River, the Salween, Yangtze and Mekong all lie exposed beneath its arc. It's focus is Tibet. At least a few satellites pass over Tibet these days. Their observations are crisp and hard, terse and digital. Statistics are collected while hardy people sleep softly on the land below. Most of the Tibetan people have never heard of satellites. They revere the sun, the moon and the stars, while respecting the harsh winds that can change the temper of a day in moments. Although some of the stars are seen to move very quickly now, the Tibetans' spiritual centre remains Lhasa, around which their lives gravitate no matter how far away from it their homes might be.

A region steeped in fable and myth, Provence is a cultural crossroads of European history. A source of inspiration to artists, poets, and troubadours, it is now an enviable refuge for the wealthy and fashionable. Nicholas Woodsworth, who was born in Ottawa, Canada, married into a Provencal family and has lived in the region for decades. Lovingly recounting vivid details of life in Provence, he provides here a welcome antidote to the typical rose-tinted, romantic view of it being a perennially sunny destination for tourists. The true Provencaux have always lived a hard life close to the land and the rhythms of the seasons. And it is in the revelation and understanding of these lives, of the Provencal people, that the truths of the region are to be found. As much a study of Provencal culture and history as a memoir and travel book, this is a deep and soulful investigation into a way of life that remains very distinct from that of the rest of France."

The story that captured the imagination of the world... In 1969 Harrods department store in London sold a three month old lion cub to two young Australians, John Rendall and Anthony (Ace) Bourke. They called him Christian. For a year Christian lived happily and safely with John and Ace and his human 'pride', initially in the World's End on the King's Road in Chelsea, where Derek Cattani first began photographing him. When Christian outgrew his London environment he moved first to the home of Bill Travers in Surrey. He was then entrusted to the care of George Adamson in Kenya, who with his wife Joy, had successfully rehabilitated their lioness Elsa, the subject of Joy's Book Born Free. A year after Christian had been living in the wild John and Ace returned to Kenya to try and find him. The film clip of their emotional reunion has now been viewed by over 100 million people on YouTube. In 1973 Christian disappeared into the wild forever. George Adamson had uniquely rehabilitated a 5th generation zoo-bred lion. John and Ace's first book about Christian was a million seller in the 1970s, and enjoyed a huge resurgence of interest after their YouTube clip went viral in 2006. This brand new book from Bradt, collects Derek Cattani's never-before-seen pictures of Christian and updates the story to the present day, including the story of their YouTube sensation and a chapter on the murder of George Adamson. When John and Ace took Christian to Kenya in 1970 there were an estimated 300,00 lions in Africa. Today there are fewer than 25,000.

Awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize for Literature, Camilo Jose Cela has long been recognized as one of the preeminent Spanish writers of the twentieth century. Journey to the Alcarria is the best known of his vagabundajes, Cela's term for his books of travels, sketchbooks of regions or provinces. The Alcarria is a territory in New Castile, northeast of Madrid, surrounding most of the Guadalajara province. The region is high, rocky, and dry, and is famous for its honey.
Cela himself is "the traveler," an urban intellectual wandering from village to village, through farms and along country roads, in search of the Spanish character. Cela relishes his encounters with the simple, honest people of the Spanish countryside--the blushing maid in the tavern, the small-town shopkeeper with airs of grandeur lonely for companionship, the old peasant with his donkey who freely shares his bread and blanket with the stranger. These vignettes are narrated in a fresh, clear prose that is wonderfully evocative. As the New York Times wrote, Cela is "an outspoken observer of human life who built his reputation on portray-ing what he observed in a direct colloquial style."